Lessons from a Pig Pen
Roger Thomas
Luke 15:11-24
I have spent my share of time in a pig pen, but not as much as my younger brother. I grew up on a farm in Central Illinois. It was a small farm, very small by Midwest standards today. We grew the typical corn, beans, and hay. We kept a few cows and chickens. The milk we sold to a local cheese factory. The eggs we peddled door to door in a nearby city. And most of the chickens we fried! Yum!
But hogs were my brother's and my speciality. We watered and fed them, rain or shine. A few of them fed us later on-if you know what I mean! We showed the best ones at the county 4-H fair.
The pig pen was a dirty, smelly place. The big pig farmers I knew insisted the smell was really the scent of money. I don't think I ever totally agreed. My brother might have. He loved to turn the pigs into pets. He would ride them like ponies or sit in the pen petting them for hours. Did you know pigs like to have their bellies scratched just like dogs? My brother grew up to be a banker. As it turned out, he specialized in arranging the financing for the huge hog farms across Iowa. His co-workers nick-named him Mr. Pig. I could have predicted that.
Any one who raises hogs eventually has a love-hate relationship with the critters. Pigs are smart and stubborn. They will eat most anything and do most anything, whether you like it or not. Pigs think that fences are just a suggestion.
I had a friend in Missouri who was a part-time pig farmer. He raised a small herd to supplement his factory job. When the price of hogs went up he would get into the business - I guess you might say -"whole hog." Then the bottom would drop out of the market. He would almost lose his shirt before selling off as many as possible to cut costs. He told me he had lost count of how many times he had ridden that swine roller coaster. Finally, he said the last time the prices fell he sold all his pigs - and his equipment ...
Roger Thomas
Luke 15:11-24
I have spent my share of time in a pig pen, but not as much as my younger brother. I grew up on a farm in Central Illinois. It was a small farm, very small by Midwest standards today. We grew the typical corn, beans, and hay. We kept a few cows and chickens. The milk we sold to a local cheese factory. The eggs we peddled door to door in a nearby city. And most of the chickens we fried! Yum!
But hogs were my brother's and my speciality. We watered and fed them, rain or shine. A few of them fed us later on-if you know what I mean! We showed the best ones at the county 4-H fair.
The pig pen was a dirty, smelly place. The big pig farmers I knew insisted the smell was really the scent of money. I don't think I ever totally agreed. My brother might have. He loved to turn the pigs into pets. He would ride them like ponies or sit in the pen petting them for hours. Did you know pigs like to have their bellies scratched just like dogs? My brother grew up to be a banker. As it turned out, he specialized in arranging the financing for the huge hog farms across Iowa. His co-workers nick-named him Mr. Pig. I could have predicted that.
Any one who raises hogs eventually has a love-hate relationship with the critters. Pigs are smart and stubborn. They will eat most anything and do most anything, whether you like it or not. Pigs think that fences are just a suggestion.
I had a friend in Missouri who was a part-time pig farmer. He raised a small herd to supplement his factory job. When the price of hogs went up he would get into the business - I guess you might say -"whole hog." Then the bottom would drop out of the market. He would almost lose his shirt before selling off as many as possible to cut costs. He told me he had lost count of how many times he had ridden that swine roller coaster. Finally, he said the last time the prices fell he sold all his pigs - and his equipment ...
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